By Nisha and Aakash
From samosa pav that feels like a homecoming and midnight tava pulao in Mumbai, to a donne biriyani that fits every bill and bar like no other in Bangalore, Kara Tales takes you on an evocative journey into the most unforgettable food experiences we have had.
Mumbai
Aakash: Mumbai as the cliche goes, is the city that never sleeps. In Mumbai you are always on the move. Always rushing to get from one place to another. There could be several reasons for it. From wanting to spend as little time in the heat and humidity as possible, to maybe believing that if you keep moving you might avoid getting trapped in the ceaseless city traffic. Often in all these moving abouts, one finds themselves hankering for a meal.
Thankfully in Mumbai there is scarcely a street, except perhaps posh neighbourhoods like Pali Hill, or Parsi Colony, or Cuffe Parade, where a plethora of options are not available. Idli-poha-anda pav can always offer quick energy for the day wherever you are. If you are not on a diet, samosa-pav, and vada-pav, and misal-pav and other pav combinations can do the same job. We all have our own favourites of these combinations and a theory I put forth is the place where you grew up, the one outside your school, college or office, is the one each of us thinks is the best. The best vada pav, how many ever reels (or Abishekh Bachchan) tell you otherwise, is not at Kirti College, nor is the best pav bhaji at Canon or Sardar. The best pav bhaji is the one your parents allow you to have (with two extra pavs and a thumbs up) after you scored good marks in an exam. This is sometimes better than most meals you might come to enjoy.
I am growing closer and closer to the idea that the aforementioned belief is true after enjoying many of the much hyped restaurants on Bombay’s food scene from O Pedro to Masque. They will never come close, in experience, to the smell of the dry garlic chutney that came inside the pav, handed to me through the main gate of the school during lunch break by a cheerful old woman with snow-white hair.
A memory connected to Mumbai, the pandemic and street food keeps coming back to me. How many ever meals I might have enjoyed since then during my years of revenge travel. I was walking in Parel, soon after the third wave restrictions had been lifted, and I was starving because I had skipped breakfast. It was then that I remembered that in the vicinity of my walk there was a particular samosa and vada seller who made these fried snacks exactly in the way I liked them. It had been years since I had been in Parel, having returned to the city after two years, and my senses were still dulled by being indoors for so long, but as I bit into the samosa (which wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be) I couldn’t help but feel a peculiar sense of homecoming. The samosa was nothing to write home about but I find myself thinking of that day, and that first bite quite often. The samosa reminded me that I knew the city (even though I was growing dissatisfied by its crumbling infrastructure) like the back of my hand and it would always be home, even on days when I didn’t want it to be.
Nisha
Bombay - the city of dreams, the city I originally wanted to live in. Tried every trick in the book to move here but as luck would have it got allocated Bangalore by the universe instead. And so it’s also a city I visit with complex emotions. Joy at my ability to access it so effortlessly now and a tug of sadness from not having had the chance to call it mine. For everything I knew about Bombay, one thing that surprised me was the food.
I went about my first trip wondering what could honestly be so great about a vadapav in Bombay that Bangalore cannot replicate. Sounds unnecessarily dramatized. And believe me I did hold on to that belief for about four odd visits until I stumbled upon a tiny non descript stall in Bandra West. I wasn’t there for the vadapav at all actually. I was on the hunt for the hot dogs I had eaten the previous night at a rock concert in the city. As luck would have it, the hot dog shop had moved and it was the irresistible scent of this freshly made vadapav that drove me to try it.
If I may say so, the best vadapav I have ever eaten. Ever. And I have made my way to this nondescript stall every time, ever since.
Now to tell you about this hot dog that sent me on a wild goose chase. The concert was Independence Rock. The hot dog stall was Kaavos and believe me, it’s been a year since I have found them or eaten them and it has been driving me crazy since. So this was not a comfortable meal because it would be comfortable or atleast continue to be comfortable if I had the chance to eat it again. Kaavos ruined me for all other hot dogs…the plump, juicy homemade pork sausages, a dash of jammy onions, a drizzle of mustard and another of Nagin sauce. I mean if I am not able to convince you that I dream of them sometimes then perhaps I am a terrible writer.
Speaking of concerts, I was in the city to attend Backstreet Boys’ 2023 India tour. In an unusually large AirBnB on Carter Road almost by accident I ate the most spectacular tawa pulao and a version of pav bhaji I have never eaten before. For one, I have never ever been fascinated by roadside tawa pulao. It’s probably the insane amount of butter or the dark blue tins with god-knows-what being tossed with callousness onto a tawa, I have really never felt a gut wrenching desire to eat it. But picture this, after a concert and a night of drinking, you walk into the kitchen to find a foil packet with warm pulao and a black bhaji and pav, still warm, left behind by some friend who swore it was the best ever..what do you do? Of course you eat it. And you fall in love with it and then order it again the next day and then the next time you go to the city. Again and again. Because that black bhaji is just some sorcery and I don’t know how that colour came and I am not in the least bit curious to know that or how the place looks. I am happy to order my butter pulao and black pav bhaji from Son of Maruti in Vile Parle every time I am in the city. And I will do so till one of us ceases to exist.
Anyway, setting that rage aside, there is another meal I go to every time I am in the city and that is undoubtedly the keema pav at Kyani & Co. I am not crazy about the Irani chai and I can definitely do without the bun maska but that keema pav, now that’s what heaven ought to feel like. Surprisingly though, Toto’s at Pali Hills also makes a mean keema pav and if Pecos from Bangalore needed a Mumbaikar cousin, this place would definitely be the jacked up version.
After wandering the SoBo side of town and tucking into Kyani, our friends and I have a ritual of walking up to Rustom’s for a musk melon ice cream or mango if it’s in season and walk up to Marine Drive to watch the sun go down. And while quite literally thousands of people are sharing in on that moment with you, in a strange way, that moment is all yours. That ice cream dripping down your fingers while you fold your legs and settle in to embrace the scent of fishy Bombay, there is something so comforting and romantic all at once.
But there is something to be said about the dive bar culture and more importantly the food at these Shetty bars. The merging of all classes within the tiny four walls of a Janta or a Sunlight, squeezing in wherever anyone finds a place to drink copious amounts of Oaksmith is perhaps why I am in love with the city in the first place. Everyone belongs everywhere. Everyone eats everywhere. Everyone drinks everywhere. Everyone travels like everyone else. And strangely it is the city with the biggest socioeconomic disparities in the country. But I digress. The best thing about these dive bars besides the prices? Prawns koliwada. Perfect, crunchy, marinated in a well spiced batter and small enough to keep popping after every sip like peanuts. Pure perfection. Aakash once said, the gauge of a good dive bar is the quality of its prawn koliwada and chicken lollipop and I believe him. Because in my pursuit, I have found some mind blowing ones and if there is one thing I wish Bangalore could adopt, it is this very thing.
And I’d be remiss if I spoke about prawns and did not speak about prawns fry and their stunning mint chutney at Jai Jawan or the malvani thalis at Chaitanya and Jai Hind. These are the kinds of meals that make me sit on my balcony, on a cool evening, in my sufficiently large house in Bangalore and dream of cramped spaces, humidity with that whiff of drying fish and that spicy, stunning meal.
Bangalore:
Nisha
I’d be doing this piece absolute injustice if I did not spread my favorite meals in Bangalore across the various stages of my life spent here. Not to say that what was comfortable 13 years ago is not today but then again, it’s Bangalore. You already know how fast a tea shop turns into a darshini and then into a cafe and then into a pub before becoming a brand new darshini again.
I remember being overwhelmed by the city facade way back in 2010. It had rained the day I had moved and I was soaked to the bone when I stumbled into Abby’s mess tucked away in the lanes of SG Palya, behind Christ University. 40 bucks for unlimited rice and fish curry. For a college kid’s budget, this was heaven and I found myself walking up those shady stairs lined by stained acid green walls more often than I’d like to admit.
And while that meal offered the comforts of a home left behind, the raw mango and chilli powder guy outside college permitted my new found freedom to take wings without a reprimanding mother to sound me off. I have eaten many a samosas, smashed theatrically and drizzled with curd and sev, right around the corner from college, for just 10 bucks a pop and taken comfort in the cost of that day’s lunch. First week of every month was, however, lavishly spent at a darshini. Breakfast, a proper one, was a luxury afterall. Masala dosa, vade and 2 filter coffees - we lived like royalty for those few days. And if there is anything to be said about comfort in Bangalore, one can find it in a filter coffee at any darshini.
It’s no surprise that everyone in the city is on a personal journey to find the best momos in town. Believe me, at any party, you will overhear someone share details about their momo guy and why he is good. And you guessed it, my guy was and continues to be excellent. This needs to perhaps be the hero of my story, because ever so often I find myself turning to Dawa’s momos, from JNC road for comfort. I have spent many an evening stopping my auto right there, eating half a plate and walking back home. I have taken all my friends there, I have also ordered it in and now my cat loves it too!
While Bombay takes the prize for exceptional bar food, Bangalore comes a close second. Chicken pakoras at Scottish pub is perhaps the only way to make and eat pakoras ever. Prawn ghee roast at Shalimar is what drunken night dreams are made of. Chilli chicken at Sathya’s is a love story that dates to carefree times. Pecos’ dosa chicken and mushroom dry fry washed down with watered down beer is perhaps the only way to correctly croon to ‘Summer of 69’ this side of town.
Many Tibetan joints have turned young Bangaloreans into romantics. From Khawa Karpo’s limitless thukpas to Tibet Mother’s Kitchen’s pork fried rice, there is something absolutely joyous about tucking into hot and hearty food with friends, tipsy from countless Mirindas in the nippy cold evenings of rainy Julys.
But if you had to really ask me, what that one meal is that I’d be happy to eat day in and day out it’d be a donne biriyani from perhaps Halli Jonne in Jayanagar. This is the only meal I’d take back if I could take back only one meal from Bangalore. A perfect donne biriyani is the best in every sense. It makes for a great hangover meal, an I-don’t-know-what-to-eat meal, a been-out-of-Bangalore-far-too-long meal. It really really fits every bill.
And while I can tell you that the pani puris in 7th block Koramangala are the best ever and the badam shake at Museum road is phenomenal and that Burger Seigneur is Bangalore’s gift to the entire country, know that an article will never be enough to sum the comfort, food in this city has given me through the decades I have lived here.
Aakash:
I visited Bangalore for the first time earlier this year. During my trip, I realised what had been my problem with making a list of places to eat at before visiting a city. Not only is it difficult to tell how much of the recommended places are paying the recommender (whether feature reporter or Instagram influencer), you end up going to the same places everyone else is going to and the process of discovery and agency is taken away from you. So appointment eating just doesn't cut it for me.
Perfectly illustrated on a visit to Bob’s where my enjoyment of my friend’s plate of egg chilli and veg pulao was vastly greater than the Conde Nast recommended sushi and ramen I had eaten earlier that day. When I travel, I tend to walk a lot, partly to get to know the city more clearly but also to try as many street food outlets as I can. A simple fruit plate can be different from city to city. In Mumbai, they put chaat masala and rock salt, in Bangalore, the plate was served without any accouterments. My favourite meal by the road was not Brahmin Idli, or Filter Coffee at some place that was running since before independence but a simple plate of ghee-rice and dal, with a boiled egg or omelet, served out of the kidnapper’s favourite vehicle, the Maruti Omni, that came to the same spot between 12:30 to 3:30 each day.
One day during all the travels is reserved for a bar crawl. The idea is not to get wasted but to have one drink at all the popular bars in the city because it always shows a very different part of a city. This is a tribute to the Anthony Bourdain way of exploring a city and maybe learning something about life in the process. It always leads to an interesting experience. In Bangalore I went to Iron Hill, Toit, Le Roc, Chin Lung, Watsons, Peco’s, Brooks and Bonds, and Corona Garden. Apart from realizing that bars don’t have to be tiny as in Mumbai (and have a tree inside as in Toit), or can play good music (like the entire versions of The Doors Light My Fire as at Peco’s), or that I could pretend to be a gangster from a 90s gangster film (by smoking in the air-conditioned interiors of Le Roc), my favourite couldn’t help but be Corona Gardens (so-called because there was a row of weeds growing in mud on either side of the establishment).
I drank whisky out of a tetra pack, discussed IPL with other members at the table (because sharing was a must) with my friend as a translator, made up a story about my Casio watch (because why was a city boy like me wearing such a cheap watch, I couldn’t just say “vintage” so I made a story up). This is why I like travelling, I remembered thinking to myself. This is what Anthony Bourdain kept recommending you do, I said to myself. I felt like the kids in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, proclaiming their infiniteness through the sunroof of their car. I could have been drunk but why did that matter?
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